Morocco’s Maritime Trade Dominates, Atlantic Ports Handle 94% of Shipping

The majority of these exchanges (94%) of the traffic was carried out by the Atlantic ports between [Agadir] and Tangier, with Jorf Lasfar and Casa Port in the lead. The port of Jorf Lasfar accounted for 38.9% of maritime exchanges in 2020 compared to 39.5% in 2019. These achievements are mainly based on exports of natural and chemical fertilizers and imports of coal, coke and solid fuels. As for Casa Port, which occupies second place, it concentrates 30.7% of the exchanges of 2020 against 31.3% in 2019. The traffic of this port is notably based on the exports of phosphates and the imports of wheat.

The third and fourth places are respectively occupied by the port of Safi and Tanger Med with 8.8% and 5.5% of traffic. The port of [Safi] has notably carried out the imports of coal, coke and fuels and that of Tanger Med is driven by the imports of gas-oils and fuel-oils. Apart from the maritime mode, the land mode represented 2.43% of the exchanges of 2020. 24.4% represent the exports of fresh tomatoes, 19.9% those of fresh, frozen or brined vegetables and 11.3% of the exports of watermelons and melons.

As for air transport, it concentrated only 0.3% of the general merchandise exchanges in 2020 against 0.4% in 2019. A rate of 88.5% of these air exchanges was carried out by Tangier airport with 56.2% of the exchanges, followed by Marrakech airport with 17.2% of the exchanges in 2020. The other modes including pipelines, cables and refueling represent 0.98% of the transactions of 2020. For Morocco’s exports, a tonnage of 33,753 MT was achieved in 2020 with more than 93.2% of exports by sea. Imports were also carried out 98% by sea with 61,203 MT carried out in 2020, specifies the Office des Changes.